Loveland celebrates fresh way to get food

Friday marked one year since Loveland Food Share's new building opened

By Shelley Widhalm Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
09/28/2012 05:19:20 PM MDT

David Kenders of Loveland picks out some red bell peppers Friday at Loveland Food Share. The food share is celebrating its one-year anniversary at this Loveland location.
(
Jenny Sparks
)

Instead of eating cheap, unhealthy foods, Loveland residents Ken and Juanita Sommerfeld can pick up fresh breads and produce as they travel the U-shaped aisle at the Loveland Food Share building.

"It's a lot of different stuff we usually couldn't afford," Ken said. He is retired.

Ken and Juanita, who cannot work for medical reasons, shopped Friday morning during the one-year anniversary celebration of the Loveland Food Share's new building at 2600 N. Lincoln Ave. The Food Share hunger relief program distributes fresh food to low-income residents who earn 185 percent or less of the federal poverty level.

"It's a lot more organized," Ken said. "It's a lot easier to walk through and keep track of what you might be able to pick up."

The New Building

The Food Bank for Larimer County, which also operates a Food Share pantry in Fort Collins, started a pantry in Loveland in 2006 in a 2,900-square-foot leased facility. By 2010, the Loveland pantry was at capacity, serving an average of 215 people a day.

"From 2006 to 2010, the demand for Loveland Food Share increased by 200 percent," said Heather Buoniconti, development director for the Food Bank for Larimer County. "We needed to do something."

The board of directors for the Food Bank initiated a 14-month capital campaign to raise $2.4 million to purchase and remodel the building that once housed a car dealership. The remodeling project converted the 16,000-square-foot dealership into a pantry with separate shopping, dock and food storage areas.

In August 2011, the pantry reopened in a permanent facility more than five times the size of the leased facility.

"We have more of a visible presence," Buoniconti said. "We have the ability to store more and have more of a variety."

The first pantry space was in an industrial area on Madison Avenue that semi-trucks could not access, requiring separate runs to pick up the food for the pantry. The food then had to be unloaded manually into a garage, instead of a dock that semi-trucks can directly access.

"This facility offers a lot more in terms of bringing in more produce, more foods that are healthier for clients and much more food in general," Food Share technician Ben Donnelly said. "We're able to serve a lot larger clientele."

With the additional space, staff can display a larger quantity of food and in such a way that clients aren't bumping into each other, Ruth Ann Krause, program manager for the Loveland Food Share, said.

"We have room to put it out in an equitable manner," Krause said.

Client Numbers

The larger space can accommodate a growing clientele.

Between January and August 2011, clients visited the pantry 117,612 times. During the same time period this year, the number of visits jumped to 132,872 visits, an average of 83 more visits a day.

The pantry served 10,082 clients in 2011, compared with 9,378 in 2010 and 8,177 the year before. In 2006, that number was 3,586.

Fifty percent of the clients are seniors and children, the most vulnerable population, Buoniconti said.

The food the clients receive comes from a variety of sources, including grocery stores, food retailers, local growers and farmers. They use shopping carts to select out what they want from the produce, bread, dairy and frozen items and other foods that are overstocked, slightly damaged or misshapen, or past the sell-by date.

Through Food Link, the Food Bank has a partnership with 80 nonprofits in the community to provide food for them that comes from the retailers, farmers and food drives.

Last year, the Food Bank distributed 8 million pounds of food through all of its programs.

The Loveland Food Share pantry is open 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday. Clients who qualify can visit the pantry up to two times a week.

"We're a safety net," Buoniconti said. "We're helping, so they don't fall into a greater level of poverty."

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